Show Your Hand
by rthstewart
Summary: Talon Karrde and Mara Jade do business, survive assassination attempts, save the life and sanity of the other, threaten one another with death and taxes, rarely talk about feelings, never, ever kiss, and, at the end, exchange a very awkward hug.


_It reminds me of a piece of jade. The emerald light coming from within is refracted and dispersed according to the consistency of the impurities that gave it its quality._  
>Thomas D'Evelyn<p>

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><p>Longish introductory blather follows.<p>

The following is a collection about Mara Jade and Talon Karrde (but _not_ Mara/Karrde!) I've written over the last year for the annual Yuletide exchange. For all that Mara and Karrde have known each other for years, there is very little fic featuring just the two of them and very little Mara gen, non-romance fic.

When I first wrote Mara 20 years ago in _Stuff_, I was very interested in resolving the romantic threads left dangling at the time in the Star Wars EU. That's a ship I'll go down with and I defended it for years, but there's a lot more to Mara. Another important relationship is her long association with Talon Karrde. They are friends, he is her mentor and boss, they are as close as two such private people can be, but not romantic. In fact, the fun thing about this for me is how the Mara and Karrde association subverts typical romantic tropes.

This story combines three separate stories, _Home Game_,_ Emerald Light Refracted and Dispersed_, and _Show Your Hand_, all previously posted on Archive of Our Own.

Spoilers for Star Wars EU, including _Hand of Thrawn_ Duology, Thrawn Trilogy, the old Kevin Anderson _Jedi Academy_ trilogy, and some of the Mara Jade short stories.

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><p>ooOOoo<p>

**_After Luke gives Mara Darth Vader's lightsaber_**

Karrde's pings on her comm had been increasing in tempo and frequency the last hour. _Of course_ she knew the _Wild Karrde's_ lift window grudgingly granted by Coruscant Space Control was closing. _Of course_ she would be on time. Honestly, given that they, too, were heroes of the Mount Tantiss expeditionary force, Karrde really should have gotten better landing privileges.

One more thing to add to the ever growing _To Do_ list as Karrde's new liaison to this new Smugglers' Alliance. Mara was skeptical – a smugglers' alliance was an oxymoron as surely as military intelligence or jumbo shrimp.

She'd said good-bye to Skywalker, left the Jedi on the roof contemplating inner peace or navel fuzz (with Skywalker, you could never be sure), packed her bag, and pinged Karrde back – twice – with _yes, I'm coming, and please don't send the vornskrs out_.

Throwing her flight bag over her shoulder and jogging to the _Wild Karrde_'s platform, it felt really strange, in a really good way, to feel again the familiar weight of a lightsaber thumping against her leg.

Karrde was standing at the top of the ship's ramp, arms crossed, trying to not look concerned. Mara wouldn't tell him that reading emotional states had gotten a lot easier again after spending so much time with a Jedi who was all in the_ Feel the Force._

"Were you worried I wasn't going to make it?" she called.

"I was worried you might not come at all."

"Why would you think that?"

Mara ducked under the bulkhead, shouldered around her broody boss, and came aboard.

Karrde pointed to the lightsaber handle hanging from her belt.

_Well, that didn't take long._

"You're the one carrying a Jedi's weapon," Karrde chided. "Leading me to wonder, did you finally kill Skywalker and steal it?"

He looked over her shoulder, toward the Palace's turbo lift doors.

Mara now really wished she'd been better able to hide her hatred of Skywalker from Karrde. "I'm _not_ bringing NR forces down on top of us. When I left him, Skywalker was trying to be one with the Force on the roof of the Palace that I did not push him off of. Killing his clone has taken care of the impulse."

_For now._ Mara wasn't going to make any promises.

"Everyone else aboard?" Mara asked.

"Yes. You were the one we were waiting for."

Mara reached over and slapped the controls and with a hiss of hydraulics, the ramp retracted and the hatch door slid shut. The hum of Coruscant winked out as the _Wild Karrde_ sealed them in.

Karrde frowned and stared again the lightsaber. Mara hefted it up so he could look at it. She felt again that thrill of warm hand on cool metal. It was heavy – Vader had been tall and strong even before he'd become Vader. The handle was too big for her grip, and awkward, but there was no way she was ever going to give up Darth Vader's own lightsaber!

"When I said I was interested in you becoming a liaison with the NR, Jedi wasn't what I had in mind, Mara. I'm not sure such a paragon of justice of the Old Republic is going to be comfortable on my crew."

She had to laugh at that and shook her head. "I'm no Jedi, Karrde."

"What about the lightsaber then?"

"Skywalker gave it to me."

Well that was the wrong thing to say judging from Karrde's startled reaction. "He _gave_ you _his_ lightsaber?"

"Well, not his, no." She hefted it again in her hands, relishing the feel of it. She had missed this _so_ much. As much as she had loved her old one, having Darth Vader's own lightsaber was maybe even better.

"So he just gave you someone else's lightsaber? Just like that?"

"Yeah."

Karrde thumbed his comm. "Aves, we're all accounted for. Take us up before someone changes his mind. If anyone hails us, give them a burst of something unintelligible. We'll come up to the bridge for the jump. The coordinates are already in the nav."

He gestured, arm going wide. "Shall we?"

Mara dropped her bag in a cargo net to collect later and fell in step with Karrde as they went forward, toward the bridge. The lightsaber was staying with her. Karrde knew what it was; maybe the rest of the crew would think it was a really big lipstick.

"Karrde, have we still got room in the aft hold?"

"We've not taken anything on yet. Why do you ask?"

The passage narrowed and they started climbing the stair up to the bridge as the _Wild Karrde_'s engines thrummed to life around them.

"After the jump, I'm going down to the hold." She patted the handle hanging from her belt. "We'll be getting acquainted."

"You're going to turn that thing on? On my ship?"

She couldn't stop the smile pulling at her lips. "Don't worry, Karrde. I know what I'm doing."

"I don't doubt that, but please don't cut into anything vital by mistake." He shied away from her and the dangling lightsaber, not wanting to get too close. "Mara, are you _sure_ no one will come looking to get it back?"

_I have Darth Vader's old lightsaber._

"That won't happen," Mara assured him, smiling again. "The Jedi it belonged to is dead …"

_And if the blue ghost of Darth Vader shows up on the bridge of the Wild Karrde and asks for his lightsaber, I'll kill him._

"Besides, he wasn't worthy of it," Mara concluded with finality.

"And you are?"

_I have Darth Vader's old lightsaber._

"Yeah, I am."

ooOOoo

**_After Kyp Durron steals Mara's Z-95, destroys a sun, and kills zillions of sentients_**

This time, the galactic crisis was yet _another_ piece of starkilling tech that seemed to litter the galaxy, left over from the Empire, that was just waiting for, as Mara would say, an Imperial agent, megalomaniac, or Dark Side Force user to find it. Why didn't Imperial admirals _stay_ dead and lost?

Karrde fell asleep in his office over the garbled and hysterical intelligence reports of a rogue Jedi named Kyp Durron, a destroyed star system, millions of dead sentients, and Mara's furious encrypt that Durron had stolen her Z-95. He woke briefly when shuttle control rang him up in the dark hours before dawn to say that Mara had returned, was going to bed, intended to sleep for the next two standard days, and would brief him when she woke up.

When she did finally appear in his office, he didn't like the dark circles under her eyes, the freshly healed injuries and, worse still, the look of defeat. Mara slumped into a chair across from him; her lightsaber banged against the table. With a grimace and muttering about lipstick, Mara unclipped it from her belt and set it on the table with a sigh.

"Anything further to add to the report?"

She shook her head. "It's all there, about Durron, Daala, and the rest of it."

"And what's not in the report?"

She sighed again. "Skywalker's made a mess of his Jedi school."

"Obviously, if he's got students stealing super weapons and destroying stars."

Mara slammed her fist down on the table so hard, she nearly knocked his data reader and her lightsaber off the table. Both stopped rocking abruptly - one of those handy Force skills Mara had evidently mastered, so perhaps her time on Yavin IV hadn't been a complete waste of time.

"It's the damned school, Karrde, and Skywalker. Durron is to blame, for sure, but the whole system Skywalker's set up is certain to produce failure!"

She winced, as if with a headache, and pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers. Closing her eyes, she muttered, "I'm only surprised that it's not worse than it is."

For the rest of the galaxy, he was sorry. For himself, Karrde was pleased. "And yet every time you go there, Mara, I keep thinking that you will leave here for good and finally become a Jedi."

"I'm no Jedi, Karrde, at least, not the way Skywalker teaches it," she concluded with a derisive snort. Mara rubbed her forehead and then let her hands fall to the table. She rolled the lightsaber handle back and forth; it made a heavy _thunk _sound as it rolled across the table.

"I hate that damned jungle. Yavin IV sure isn't a good place _for me_ to find inner peace."

That was as blunt as Mara ever got in speaking with him of her time with Palpatine.

"And who decides it's a good idea to train a bunch of wet-behind-the-ears fumbling Force-sensitives in a place infested with a Dark Side presence?" Mara jumped up from her seat and began pacing the length of his bare office, her irritation understandably finally getting the better of her during what had been a truly rotten period.

Mara's voice hiked with anger. "I remember what Jedi were. I saw it myself. Leading those monastic, isolated existences is part of what brought them down. Skywalker's not learned _anything_ from their mistakes. He's repeating them, compounding them, even. And the _arrogance_…"

She let out an exasperated groan, undoubtedly something she'd been withholding for weeks, and let her flailing arms fall to her sides. He always wondered what Mara did, how she did it, but he could see the deep, cleansing breath, the way the tension leached from her body, and the calm that returned.

"Sorry," Mara said and again took her seat. "I shouldn't have said all that."

"As you say, it's what's not in the report. I appreciate your confidence and you have my discretion, Mara. I can't begin to understand the situation as you do. I admit to considerable pique on your behalf."

Her head came up. "What do you mean?"

It was truly the most confounding thing and the longer he thought on it, the less he understood it.

"Only that with all these unstable Force users on Yavin IV, and these disastrous failures, why doesn't Skywalker just concentrate on training you?"

Skywalker had given Mara a lightsaber, the one Karrde had learned had been cut from his own hand on Bespin. Surely that meant something significant in the language of the Jedi?

"You'd think that would be the smart thing to do, wouldn't you?" Mara replied, now sounding more brittle than bitter. "I _could _help, I'm willing to learn, and I could teach. But Skywalker's made it clear he's not interested in me."

She picked up the lightsaber and weighed it in her hands. Karrde had seldom seen her actually use it but Mara's own growth and blossoming skills had been obvious to him. "I'm through. Let them rot in the jungle and Skywalker can wallow in his isolation. I'll just be there to sweep up the carnage when it all goes to hell, _again_."

"Selfishly, I'm glad you've not stayed with Skywalker, but I don't want you to close the door on opportunities, Mara." The Smugglers' Alliance was her present but it might not be her future.

Mara's eyes narrowed in that way that signaled he'd gone too far. "Don't go making decisions for me, Karrde. This is where I belong." She clipped the lightsaber back on her belt. "But if you've got something that takes me a long way away from Skywalker and Jedi, I'd be glad for the change of scenery and company whose idea of a good time doesn't involve swinging from vines in the jungle."

Karrde glanced at his data reader and scrolled through the file on Jorj Car'das, personally encrypted to his own fingerprint and retinal scan. Mara had confided in him; he could do no less now.

"Actually, Mara, there is something you can do. It is a long-term project and one that you can recruit the personnel for, though I do have one suggestion I'll ask you to consider."

Everything about her brightened and she craned her neck for a closer look at his data reader. "Oh? Does it have anything to do with that encrypted file in front of you I've been trying read?"

He keyed in the decrypt on the file of his own ugly personal history and turned the reader around so she could see it. "What do you know about how I came to start this organization?"

ooOOoo

**_After Mara gets disgusted with Jedi, again_**

This was an unexpected feeling.

_I hurt._

_A lot._

Karrde tensed and tried to get his bearings, keeping his eyes closed to fool anyone observing. He heard first and immediately recognized the unique thrum of engines. So, he was on the _Wild Karrde_ and they were not in hyperspace. That faint antiseptic smell, rhythmic beeps, and the hard thing he was lying on meant he was in the medical bay.

Had they been raided? Boarded? As his mind caught up with his first, instinctual response to assess the situation, whatever had mowed him down didn't seem to have impacted his ship and crew.

So why _was_ he in the med ward feeling like he'd been chewed up and spit out by a rancor who'd found him indigestible?

_A meeting_. He'd been going to a meeting…

"No use trying to fake it, Karrde. I know you're awake."

He slowly turned his head toward the familiar voice and opened his eyes. Mara was sitting in the chair next to his bunk.

"Anyone else hurt?" His mouth was so dry the words came out as a sticky croak.

Mara's eyes flicked over the readouts embedded in the bunk's controls, though he could tell from the speed and timbre of the beeps that he felt worse than he actually was.

"Not our people. But a lot of innocents were taken out when the casino blew."

He saw a cup of what was hopefully water on the side table, tried reaching for it, and fell back again, hissing with pain.

"You're lucky it's not worse," Mara said. She picked up the cup and held it to his lips so could take a few careful sips of the warm, flat water. It didn't taste as if she'd laced it with any narcotic.

"From how I feel, worse would be pretty bad."

"How much do you remember?"

"We dropped outside Le Yer. You and I were going to meet someone from Zann about the SoroSuub cloaking device. We took a floatboat to the casino."

Mara nodded. "And just as we were clearing security…"

"I was bribing the guard. The last thing I remember was that I thought she was too cheap."

"Maybe she was trying to get us inside. I felt something happen before it actually did. I was able to throw up a Force shield around us both but the concussion was bad. Fortunately, it threw us out of the building and into the street."

"That explains the ringing in my ears, the throbbing headache, and the hurt in places I didn't know I had."

"You were concussed. Aves was monitoring the channels and knew there was trouble. We were out of there before the emergency responders arrived. You've been sleeping it off the last two days."

Karrde shifted on the bunk and winced again. "I'm glad Skywalker taught you a _useful_ skill."

"I eagerly await his next instruction on how I should meditate more and do less," Mara replied dryly. "Should I thank him for you? Or would that lead to you owing what you don't want to pay back?"

"Really, Mara, I've trained you better than that. You should have determined whether a debt owed a Jedi is something I want to avoid and then leverage that to get something out of me."

"I thought about it, but the odds of a reward for bold ingenuity were at least as great as you assigning me scut work for threatening you."

Finding the conversation difficult on his back, Karrde tried to move and again found it too painful. _So this is what being hurtled 20 meters felt like?_ He didn't want to repeat the experiment.

"Let me help you; you shouldn't be moving much just yet."

He could add _deft sickroom nurse_ to Mara's eclectic list of talents. She manipulated the controls so the bed's headrest rose slowly enough for him to manage the change in position without needles of lancing agony and then adjusted his pillow and tucked the mussed thermal wrap back around his legs. The exertion left him exhausted but more comfortable and he accepted more water.

"We've got some liquid nutrient matrix in the stores. I'll bring that later."

"I don't think I could chew just yet," Karrde agreed, slowly working his jaw. "Where are we?"

"A nice bit of nowhere that Aves dropped us into after getting us out of Abredgado-rae. We're monitoring the chatter about the explosion, listening in on the HoloNet and subchannels, and trying to splice into the Zann Consortium's networks for any intel."

"Any ideas whether we were the actual target? Or did we just get caught in someone else's cross-fire?"

Mara shook her head. "It could be some of both. Black Sun wouldn't want to be competing with us for the cloaking device; maybe it was a power grab to assassinate you and me. Either way, someone killed 72 sentients to do it."

"Well, keep looking. If we blundered into something between Black Sun and Zann, we'll be able to sell that – maybe even to New Republic Intelligence." That was payback he and Mara would both enjoy dispensing and having NRI owe them a favor was always a good outcome.

His head was beginning to pound like a band with a thunder drum. He settled back into the cot as comfortably as he could manage.

"You're hurting," Mara said. "You're due for pain meds."

"I'm not taking those." He hated them. The ones on the _Wild Karrde_ always made him feel worse than what they were trying to relieve. Pain, at least, sharpened the mind.

"Pain slows healing," Mara countered. "You won't get better if you don't take your medicine."

"Says the one who uses Force healing and not narcotics."

"You're acting like a child."

"And you are my employee, not my parent."

"Fine," Mara snapped. "The longer you are out, the longer I'm in charge."

He knew where this was leading. "Mara..."

"Just to let you know, Ghent is complaining again about the positioning of the Holonet transreceivers on the hull. So, I'll tell him he can do that deep space walk to adjust them."

The thought was horrifying. It was also a bluff. "I know what you are doing, Mara, and it won't work."

"I haven't told you how we exercised Sturm and Drang this morning? They've been confined on ship for too long and were getting very edgy, so I developed a plan."

"Mara…"

"I ping them with the Force and then they chase me down the corridors of the ship, with Chin trying to hold on to their leashes."

"Mara…"

"They've only gotten loose once. Maybe twice. I think some of the crew are getting too slow and lazy, so I'll put them between me and the vornskrs, and we can see who runs faster."

"Mara…"

She held up the hated bottle. "Take two of these and I'll even give you your datapad."

Karrde decided Mara was a terrible sickroom nurse.

ooOOoo

**_After Sansia Bardrin gives Mara the Jade's Fire_**

Karrde knew he'd have to get to the tapcafe early to beat Mara. He decided to do what any organizational head would do and delegate to a trusted, not-quite-subordinate, _colleague,_ he decided. Mara could do the reconnaissance in advance of their meeting and he could take his time navigating the icy streets of Chazwa's Warehouse District looking for someone who knew someone who knew someone else about a faster way through the Perlemian that avoided the popular hyperspace jump points New Republic Intelligence were taking an unprofitable interest in.

Mara's predictable advance canvassing of their meeting point also provided a convenient, needed opening.

So he perfectly timed his own arrival for the moment when Veeone, Mara's pilot droid on the _Jade's Fire_, had been subdued. Karrde entered the Hot Pot tapcafe and was shaking the snow from his boots just as Mara rose from her (of course it was the corner, back to the wall, near the exit) seat.

"Sorry, Karrde," she said, trying to pull on her coat, push by him, and rush out the door into the bitter, gray cold. "Problem at the port. I need to…"

"Tell Slips to let my team aboard so they can install my ship-warming gift to you."

He steered her by the elbow back to the seat she had just vacated. "And haven't I taught you to always pay your bar bill before skipping out?"

It was a rule of honor among smugglers, which like most of their rough and ready code, had its roots in blunt practicality. _Always _pay your tab. Barkeeps were more ruthless than even the most hardened bounty hunter. Many a planned quick escape had been thwarted by a cheated cantina owner with friends at the port –and they _all_ had friends at the port.

"I should have guessed you'd be behind this." She thumbed her comm link. "Veeone, it's fine. They're Karrde's people so let them aboard. Call me before you shoot anyone. I might not stop you."

The droid made a rude noise that sounded suspiciously like Skywalker's acerbic R2 unit – a possible alliance that should alarm every slicer and intelligence analyst from Coruscant to the Outer Rim.

"And _really_, Karrde, is your memory going?" Mara said archly. "I worked a tapcafe. I'm never going to stiff a waitress."

_Point to Mara._

They sat back down and Karrde thought he was being the cultured, genteel companion by letting Mara take the seat with the better vantage of the tapcafe and everyone in it. _Delegating. _By the time they had both shrugged out of their coats, the Sullustan server was hovering.

"The old man here will take a Knockout," Mara said. "I'll have another kaffe, Juri. Thanks."

He had no idea what was in a Knockout. "Trying to get me drunk to fleece me now that you are out on your own with your own ship?"

"I know it would take more than one drink to get you to give me your supplier list in the Yag'Dhul system." Mara's eyes looked over his shoulder wandered about the tapcafe, assessing the fifteen sentients in it, judging their risk and calculating their odds. He saw her shoulders relax fractionally and her hands came up to the table to fiddle with a spoon; her holdout blaster peeked out from underneath her loose sleeve. "And you wouldn't drink it, or you would slip a neutralizer in when I wasn't looking, and then try to put something in mine, and maybe not give me the ship-warming gift you are installing, whatever it is, but is surely beyond my modest budget."

"If I was really irritated at you for trying to get me drunk, I would have Ghent slice into your transponder, so you'd be broadcasting as an NR Tariffs Duty Officer."

He got a genuine _Mara glare_ for that one.

"I quite like that idea," Karrde responded, not the least ruffled. "I ruin your fledgling business and then you come back to my organization. Very neat and tidy."

"Or maybe I'll take NR Intell up on that offer to be a commando and make sure you get a nice audit from the tax division of the Ministry of Justice?"

If that was a real threat, it would be vile, but it was no more real than his threat to have Ghent rig the _Fire's_ transponder. That was a trick he'd stolen from a hard-drinking Corellian stringer of his, years ago. Ghent had perfected the ploy and he and Mara had used it to spectacular effect over the years. "So despite its name, I have your assurance that the Knockout is non-impairing?"

Mara nodded. "But it could have been invented for you, Karrde. It looks and smells like it could double as antifreeze in this climate and strip paint from a hull so everyone else _thinks_ you are drunk. I'll give you the recipe."

"If you were still working for me, I'd assume it would be a kindly gift to your hard-working employer. Now that you are my competitor, how much?"

Mara smiled and leaned back in her chair, elbows up, so he got a good look at the blaster strapped to her arm. She was really enjoying their new equality. "Depends on the ship-warming gift."

Juri returned with their drinks, Mara's steaming kaffe and his own, a small clear glass with something whitish and milky floating in it. It smelled like it could knock out a rancor at 100 meters.

"Go on, try it," Mara urged. "It's nothing like what you think. Trust me."

"I do." Karrde gingerly raised his glass and took a very cautious sip of the toxin. The ethanol was overwhelming – so much so, it evaporated the moment the drink touched his lips leaving only a smalll, burning feel that quickly dissipated.

"Remarkable. Good thing I'm not thirsty. And yes, I would like the recipe." He set the drink down. "Independence seems to agree with you if you can buy me drinks, and afford the port fees here, a pilot droid, and that new holdout strapped to your arm."

"It's good," Mara replied, stirring sweetener from the table into her kaffe. She always took one small spoonful, precisely measured. "I'm enjoying being my own for a bit, just me and the _Fire._ A lot of the business I'm getting so far is people thinking that I'm still your agent. I set them straight; I'm no poacher."

"Hopefully you keep some of that business for yourself and give me a cut?"

Her eyes rose over her cup. "That didn't occur to me, I'm embarrassed to say. I suppose I'm loyal to a fault, which is something I really need to get over. How about 15%?"

"Loyal but cheap?" Karrde scoffed. "Give me 25% for the first 6 months. After that, if people coming to you still think they are getting my organization instead of yours, they're idiots, so take them for everything you can."

Karrde swirled the drink, marveling at its fresh stench. "You don't need my opinion or my blessing, Mara, but I'm glad you are trying this out. It does have its own measure of freedom."

A gust of cold air pushed into the tapcafe as the door opened. Mara's head shot up to study whoever it was. With Mara doing the surveillance, Karrde didn't even bother to turn around and, after a moment's study of the newcomer, she returned her attention to her kaffe and their conversation.

"I love having my own ship," Mara said. "I'm not sure how I feel yet about my own business. Stars and skies, the taxes and fees on the major routes in and out of the Core are insane."

Spoken like a true businesswoman. "I encourage you to take it up with our friends in the NR government. _Please_."

Mara put out her hands in a warding gesture and shook her head. "Absolutely not. I'll just take care of rescuing the Skywalkers, Solos, and their nearest and dearest. I've told Skywalker he should just rig his whole family with implanted tracking devices to make it easier for me to find them the next time they're kidnapped by Imp agents, megalomaniacs, criminal not-quite-masterminds, and Dark Side Force users."

"Precisely my point! You would think the ruling family would richly reward their friends with a more favorable business environment?"

"No," Mara replied firmly. "I am out of politics."

Well, it was worth of try. "Returning to your earlier point, it is well-taken, Mara. What you find tedious in the business, I enjoy. I hope you succeed but if you ever decide it's too dull, and want to cash out, I'll be glad to take you back in and buy out your operation."

She smiled. "Thanks, Karrde. That's really good of you." Mara paused and twisted the sweetener spoon between her fingers. "It's the _Fire_ I'm enjoying more than the business, I admit. I hope you don't mind me saying so, but the _Fire_ really feels like a home now. That's not something I've had for a really long time and…"

"Of course I don't mind," Karrde assured her when Mara trailed off, sounding embarrassed. He was glad Mara could see what had been so obvious when Sansia Bardrin had gifted the _Fire_ to her. It was love, true love, at first sight, freedom, and emotion as powerful as anything between any couple.

"Even if the business goes nowhere, I'll always have the _Fire_," Mara said softly, staring down at the spoon she had managed to bend completely into a knot.

With the raw feeling, he suddenly felt embarrassed, for Mara and on his own behalf. It was a strange thing, that word, _home_. Smugglers didn't usually have them and Mara's own early life had been even more unsettled and painful than his own. It was why he'd spent the last 20 years building his own family, those he could choose, bound by ties stronger even than blood. Karrde understood so well what it meant to Mara. He did hope she would return some day to his outfit; but even when and if she did, she had her own ship now. Mara was her own captain and some part of her would never be part of his organization again.

"As a matter of fact, you _will_ always have the _Fire_," Karrde said. He carefully removed the controller from his pocket and set it on the table.

Mara sucked in a startled breath, stared at the gleaming, silver controller on the chipped orange table, and then looked up at him. "Is that…"

"You're ship-warming gift. We're upgrading the remote beacon. I had someone steal it from the SoruSuub Corp development laboratories, just for you."

Mara picked up the controller and cradled it gently in her hand.

"It's military-grade, engineered for longer range and better performance, even in bad weather and under fire. If you call, the _Fire_ will always come to you."

"The way you talk makes it sounds so romantic, Karrde!" Mara said with a laugh. "About how many relationships can a person say that?"

Only someone who had never loved a ship would think Mara sounded bitter. Karrde knew better because he had loved the same way, and found a home in much the same way. And as much as he loved the _Wild Karrde_ and his crew, the _Jade's Fire_ meant far more to Mara becaue she had had to lose so much and work so hard to gain what she now had.

_You don't need to find a home anymore, Mara. Home will always find you._

He stood and gestured to the exit. "It should be installed by now. Let's see what she can do." He quickly put a hand over Mara's own to keep her from activating the controller. "Though, I don't recommend testing it here. If you activate it, she'll fly right through that front door, and I wouldn't want the damage a cruiser could do to this tapcafe on your bill."

ooOOoo

**_After Nirauan_**

Mara found him on Coruscant a few days after Nirauan Karrde didn't think he'd been avoiding her, or she him. It had simply been very busy. The aftermath of the Caamas situation and his own reunion with Car'das had been complicated, personally and politically. As for Mara, Karrde supposed that since she was marrying Skywalker, they both should probably start calling him _Luke_.

When he complained to Shada that Mara's report on her and _Luke's_ infiltration of the Chiss compound was obviously incomplete, Shada was very tart in response. "Do you really want to be reading how Mara and Luke _finally_ admitted they were in love with each other while crawling through the Nirauan cave system? _Really? _ Because there're limits to what an information broker should know and that's one of them."

It was a fair point.

Shada added to her argument that morning when he again awoke with her beside him in the bunk - a sensation he was enjoying but that was taking some getting used to. "Besides, Talon, it's not as if you need any pointers from Mara on love. You're doing just fine."

Also a fair point.

Mara timed her visit to the room he shared with Shada late enough in the Palace day that Shada was off seeing to her own affairs.

The lightsaber was at Mara's side, worn with a real confidence and pride. Mara Jade was finally a Jedi. The two of them actually embraced, though it was an awkward patting on the back.

"A hug? Shada's turned you soft and sentimental!"

"Don't tease, Mara, unless you're prepared for me to deliver the same." He wasn't going to ask how Mara had found out about Shada. He really didn't want to know.

They sat in the conversation cluster of the compact room's living quarters, staring at one another. It was impossible to know where to begin. He knew one thing to say and best get it out of the way before they moved to happier matters.

"I'm very sorry about the _Jade's Fire_, Mara. It was really a truly noble sacrifice on your part and I know what it cost you."

She physically winced, the pain of the loss of her beloved ship on Nirauan still fresh and raw in her countenance. He leaned forward and took her hands in his own. "I am so sorry."

Mara squeezed his hands. "Thanks, Karrde. It was probably the hardest thing I've ever done. Still, I lost the _Fire_, but I gained Luke."

"And that's a fair trade?"

"It is." Mara pulled away and leaned back in her chair, looking unconscionably smug. "And you and Shada? Tell me more!"

It was so uncomfortable saying anything of something so unexpected and so inexplicably wonderful.

"I have known her almost as long as you've known Skywalker – Luke. She's made some sacrifices. She is a remarkable person. She doesn't seem to mind my old face and gray hair."

Mara smiled. "I suppose it's taken us both ten years to find happiness."

"We've been happy!" Karrde protested.

"We have!" Mara replied. "But having romantic happiness doesn't diminish what you've built and given to all of us in your organization. It's just a different kind of happiness. A being can love more than one thing, in more than one way."

"Yes, I suppose," he conceded. The depth and fervor of Mara's words eased the nagging guilt he felt for not doing more for his people, despite Car'das' assurances. He had tried to give them all a family and a place to call home.

"Karrde, we both just ended up with something we didn't expect, with someone we didn't expect."

"Certainly it caught me by surprise, which really doesn't happen very often anymore."

The whole point of being an information broker was to avoid surprises. Karrde didn't like surprises. Unless he could profit from them, which he supposed he was this time, too, just in a way that wasn't measured in credits and intelligence.

"Which brings me to a favor," Mara said.

He quelled the old urge to ask about the cost of the favor and, for the moment, just listen to her offer.

"Luke and I have already made our vows, and that's all that really matters. But having a Jedi ceremony is important to Luke, and I think we do need something public to show what a Jedi bond can be. The ceremony we're using involves us each being accompanied by a family member – it's sort of symbolic, leaving one family for your new one."

"Well, that's fine for Skywalker," Karrde replied. All this time and he could still feel a little defensive on Mara's behalf. She had no family, no parents, no ties to anyone.

"It is less clear for me," Mara admitted. "But as you so often say, a family isn't just the one you were born into, so I think the solution is obvious."

She arched an eyebrow, inviting him to provide the obvious solution.

Karrde leaned forward again and took her hands. "Mara Jade, you've been a valued, trusted, and loved member of my family for a long time. To a being, each of us would gladly serve as escort. I'd be honored to stand in for them all if your husband and in-laws don't mind the lack of respectability."

ooOOoo

_And in my personal head canon, they all lived happily ever after to the end of their days._


End file.
